Twitter Retweets Can Now Contain Photos, Videos, GIFs It's a relatively small change for users, but apparently a really challenging new feature for Twitter to implement and get right.
This story originally appeared on PCMag
New Twitter features roll out at a snail's pace, with the memorable big changes being the increase in character limit and the switch from stars to hearts. This week we got a smaller, but still significant change to retweets. It's now possible to retweet with a photo, video, or GIF attached.
As The Verge reports, retweeting until now has been limited to two options: a simple retweet of the original tweet, or you could retweet with a comment. It's that second option which is being expanded to allow the inclusion of media. So clicking "Retweet with comment" will now allow you to embed a photo, a video, or a GIF.
For now, the retweet tweak is limited to Twitter on Android, iOS, or the Twitter mobile website. Desktop users don't have access to it yet and these new media-rich retweets will look a little strange on desktop until that's fixed. Even so, it's sure to be a welcome update by users who'd rather not be limited to text when sharing someone else's tweet with their followers.
From Twitter's point of view, the change proved quite challenging because it was difficult to get the layout right without things looking confusing. Stacking media can make the stream of information look muddled, so Twitter needed it to be very clear how the media was linked between the two tweets. This was achieved by placing the original tweet in a smaller box below the retweet, but also indented from it. That way the retweet looks more prominent, but it's visually quite clear it's a response to the indented tweet below.
Retweeting with media is already being used and some major brands are taking full advantage, including Game of Thrones. It's one of those features that will soon become a natural part of retweets and we'll all forget how limited retweeting used to be.
